


Curvature of the Field

by Argyle



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 5 Things, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-31
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Erik thought the view might be worth the journey, and one time he knew it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curvature of the Field

To begin with, Erik was always being talked into things.

His father would say it was to do with Erik's inherit need to please, and thus be pleased himself. Even as the thought traced through Erik's mind, rapid and unwanted, he could all but hear that disapproving tone.

But some things couldn't be helped.

When his friends at school snuck out to smoke cigarettes pilfered from their own fathers' pockets, Erik went too. He hacked jovially around the first. And the second was smoother.

"How are you finding your Suetonius?" he asked, looking between Kurt and Martin and Paul.

"Rubbish!" cried Kurt.

The other boys laughed in agreement.

Erik nodded, "Yes, it's the worst." But the truth was this: he'd stayed up late the previous few nights to read ahead. As much as he admired Augustinian virtue, he was quite looking forward to the more sordid tales of the later Caesars.

"So it's decided," said Martin. "If we all hate it, we shan't allow Herr Hesse to punish us with a lecture! Not on what's probably the last warm day we'll have this year."

"Yes," said Kurt. "Haven't you heard? There's a war on. We might all be dead before spring."

"Kurt!" Erik hissed, his stomach sinking. This was familiar enough ground for them, but it always made him feel uncomfortable, stretched and strewn, almost as though his bones were too large for his skin.

"Kurt's right, Erik." Stamping out the end of his cigarette, Paul said, "So who knows a place to spend it? There's a new film at the--"

"Are you mad?" Kurt cut him off. He flicked his own cigarette into the dust, and Erik eyed it warily as it continued to burn, low and orange. Then Kurt slapped him on the back. "Eh, Erik? Have anything better for us?"

"Maybe," said Erik. And then: "Yes."

His idea was this: an afternoon at his uncle's orchard. It was an hour's walk from the school, or half that if they made it to the edge of town by trolleybus, and Paul was always able to cough up enough coins to cover them.

By the time they arrived, it was well after three. Erik knew the place would be deserted until evening. His uncle trucked bushels of apples into town to sell at the market, and never failed to stop for beer and supper before returning home.

Erik led the other boys down a graveled path past the main house, then down to the orchard proper. They sat on the grass and passed a bottle of schnapps (this time nicked from Kurt's mother's cabinet) between them.

"Oi! Erik, leave some for me," crowed Martin.

"I haven't had any, hardly!" Erik said.

In no time, they were drunk, or drunk enough to play at it. Paul and Kurt scuffled for a while in the dirt, no doubt arguing over the football match they both heard broadcast on the wireless the night before.

And Erik himself settled and stretched back, his head cradled in his hands. The light shone green through the tree limbs, dappling over him in swinging pockets of shadow and glare, and he felt a bit airy, not unpleasantly so, but enough to make him close his eyes to shut out the sun.

"Erik!"

There was a thump on his chest, then another. Martin had climbed halfway into one of the trees, and was tossing overripe apples at him. They landed with a squish, dampening his shirtfront.

Two could play at this. And besides, all the best apples were near the top: Erik's uncle had numerous trees and was contended to pick only the low-hanging fruit. He made good money from it, especially on the rarer varieties, but was also enough of a cheapskate to not hire day-laborers who would climb ladders and collect the rest. It was an awful waste, but then again, Erik's uncle had grown fat and idle with age.

(This was what Erik's mama told him. But she didn't exactly get on well with her brother-in-law.)

Erik clambered up the tree, pushing past Martin easily. He'd had practice at it.

Once he reached a high enough branch, he perched there and began to pick the best of the lot, the ones that were firm, sun-warmed and worm-free. Martin waited below to catch them in his jacket as they fell.

And then Erik rose higher. It was dangerous, he knew: he was bigger than he was the last time he'd done this, heavier, but also more wiry, and he was able to keep a booted foot to the trunk, and a branch at each arm as he peaked through to the top.

Honestly, it wasn't that high. No more than twenty feet.

But from there, right then, he reckoned he could see farther than he ever had.

He saw the stream as it hemmed the orchard, and the orchard beyond that. The low fields grown soft and gold in the late afternoon light. And behind him, at some distance, the city.

Here and there the taller buildings stood out in view, grey bricked and shadow-hewed. It was a stupid thing, but Erik thought he could piece out the heft of them. Not of the stone. Or not only. Rather, he imagined the framework, unseen; the steel girders that held most of the new structures together and that augmented the older ones.

He sensed the _weight_ of the stone on that metal. And the metal taking it all, and more without complaint, like Atlas with the world on his back.

A shiver passed through him. And of course it was probably just the schnapps working round his guts in the usual way. He wondered, vaguely, whether the others had finished off the bottle without him.

"Erik! What's got into you?" Kurt's voice flicked up from the ground.

Then Martin's: "We've more than we can carry. Get down or we'll shake you out!"

Erik laughed at them, reveling in it a bit.

Then he climbed down.

The four of them ate apples until they were sick.

*

"Wake up, Erik. Wake up."

It was dark.

It was always dark there, in his cell.

It was always dark. And damp. And he always went through his days hungry, reeling with it, all but delirious, until sleep -- _sweet sleep, what could be better than that?_ \-- eventually took him.

Except on the days he pleased Herr Doctor, the times he was able to do that one simple thing that filled each of his atoms, couldn't possibly be anything but the true heart of him, and that was this: _move things_.

Which was this: move things with only his will, his power (Herr Doctor spoke of power often).

"Erik. Wake up, child."

And Erik had the power to move things that were made of metal.

It was a struggle to remember the first time he knew this was so. Of course Herr Doctor had spent endless hours picking Erik's mind, probing his thoughts, for that particular bit of information.

 _How long had he been here?_

Erik supposed it was sometime before the war, which is what he told Herr Doctor. But he wasn't sure.

"Erik, I have supper for you. A nice potato, a nice piece of cheese. What do you say?" This was Herr Doctor, his voice sounding tinny through the cell door. "And I will let you have this supper if you perform your special task, just as we talked about. Do you remember?"

Erik remembered. And he could almost smell the cooked potato. This was also a memory.

Erik knew that Herr Doctor was not alone, outside his cell. Perhaps he did have supper, laid out on a chipped porcelain plate (never the aluminium trays the other prisoners were given), but he also had two or three heavily armed guards with him.

At first, Herr Doctor had taken special precaution with that, those guards. Erik knew he wanted to keep German casualties to a minimum, and therefore keep his own operation blissfully paperwork-free (again, Herr Doctor's words).

But this was also something they'd talked about. If Erik wanted to go on with all his limbs -- and he did, surely -- he would not kill the guards.

So he didn't.

What he didn't tell Herr Doctor was that he wasn't sure he could, even if he wanted to. And he did, surely.

But with an acuteness he only recently recognized in himself, he also wanted to eat.

So he closed his eyes. Breathed deep.

Erik opened the door, which was this: steel on steel, tiny moving parts in the lock mechanism, and the substantial iron heft of the door itself.

Herr Doctor stood on the other side -- three guards with him this time, along with the two who always stood watch, and beyond that the countless others who no doubt waited at Herr Doctor's beacon call -- and he was smiling wickedly and widely enough that Erik's empty stomach somersaulted at the sight.

But there was the potato, and the cheese.

"Very good, Erik," said Herr Doctor, coming into the cell. His spectacles glinted in the half-light. He was still smiling. "Very good, indeed."

*

Erik had come a long way.

Yes, this was true in literal terms. The journey north from Argentina was unpleasant: he spent eight hours in a crowded bus which stank of chicken shit to get back to Buenos Aires, and then booked a ridiculous series of nondescript flights, whatever was fastest, from there to Rio de Janeiro, then Rio de Janeiro to Caracas, Caracas to San Juan, and finally from San Juan into Miami.

But this gave him time to think.

To plan.

A part of him had been so _ready_ to face Schmidt at Villa Gesell -- nothing, not even spilling the blood of those Germans at the bar, appeased the wave of fury that crested upon him when it was clear Schmidt was nowhere to be found at hand.

But Erik wouldn't let that get in the way of his determination to track down the _Caspartina_ in Miami. He needed to be focused, and organized. So he was.

He checked into one of Miami's pink deco monstrosities.

He unpacked his suitcase and laid his implements on the bed: knives, guns and ammunition, rope and chains and a wetsuit.

He stared out at the bright night, breathed deep of damp, green air.

And he slept through the night.

Come dawn, he was prepared to extract the information as to Schmidt's whereabouts via any means necessary, and all the better if it was some damned holidaymaker who came under his hands.

But Schmidt -- _Sebastian Shaw_ , Erik learned after unfolding the photograph from the bar under the right man's nose, and with the right amount of coercing -- was something of a man about town, known for excessive spending at the casinos and large, loud parties on the water. It turned out he wasn't all that difficult to find.

Erik spent the afternoon on the pier.

Then evening came, too fast, not fast enough, and the _Caspartina_ was there in front of him. Black-prowed, hulking, like every mechanical beast Erik had ever dreamed of in his life, every metal frame he would come to control. And beneath that were infinitesimal small, dangerous pieces. He felt the ocean's tug against its sides, and the chains which moored it.

Of course Schmidt would surround himself with a thousand tons of steel. The man's arrogance and impudence knew no bounds, but the _Caspartina_ was indeed a loathsome thing. And fearsome.

But seeing that, Erik knew suddenly and with certainty that Schmidt didn't expect him, hadn't planned for this, and Erik would at last _have_ him after all these years.

Erik would take him. Not listen to any pleas. Have no struggle of mind.

Erik would kill him.

He slipped into the water then, and was gone.

*

"Lucy the Elephant stands sixty-five feet high, sixty feet long," said Charles, "and weighs approximately ninety tons."

"She'll never fit into the CIA facility," Erik drawled. And then: "Well, maybe the hangar. Hank _could_ use a friend down there."

"Really, Erik. I've no idea why you object to taking in a little roadside culture. Especially when we're not drawn too far off our course."

The thing was, Erik didn't mind. Not really. In the weeks they'd been on the road, searching for the mutants Charles had pin-pointed with Cerebro and then pulled their signatures from the ether like so much smoke, he'd become accustomed to these long hours in the car.

And also accustomed to the fact that said hours were a bit more interesting for the times Charles urged them to stop the car for whatever it was at that moment that piqued his interest.

Yesterday, it was roadside farm stands. Charles would spy one up ahead, and if not command Erik to pull over (and he _could_ command him, Erik knew but thought on as rarely as he dared), certainly _urge_ him with a point of his finger and a blithe, "That's the one, Erik."

Charles bought several pints of strawberries and a paper bag full of nectarines.

The fruit was wonderfully ripe when they ate it that night, both of them too weary and worn to do anything but pile into Charles' lumpy motel bed and ignore what was playing on the television.

Their mutant quarry _du jour_ had wanted nothing to do with them, but Charles still spoke optimistically of her. "She'll come around," he said. "I can't _force_ any of them into coming with us, but I've a feeling-- I could sense the spark interest in her. The _possibility_ of being among others like herself isn't something she ever before believed could be true, and she's been frightened for so long..."

Erik shook his head, unconvinced. "Not everyone wants what you want, Charles."

"And you?" Charles eyes bored into him, a little amused, no less bright for his exhaustion. "What do you want, my friend?"

Erik wanted this: to lick the sticky-sweet juice which dripped down Charles' forearm from the half-finished nectarine in his hand.

How infuriating Charles could be; how obscene. What would come next served him right--

"Erik?" Charles said, breaking Erik's reverie.

Erik blinked. "Fine," he said. "We can see your elephant."

A pleased, knowing smile flicked across Charles' mouth, then was gone. "Splendid."

He returned to his guidebook and began to read more, "Apparently, Lucy was built to attract real estate investors to the area. It's one of the finest still-standing examples of Victorian novelty architecture. Oh, you'll like this: the exterior was constructed with four ton's worth of tin sheeting, and a wrought iron spiral stair runs up one of the legs, leading into the interior. Um, into the belly of the beast, as it were."

"It sounds enchanting," Erik said. Then he thought this: //You'll owe me one,// and laced it with a clear, pure peal of want, and the image of Charles beneath him, completely undone -- both of them undone.

Charles smiled again. His cheeks were a little flushed, and he shifted in his seat. With great interest, he turned to look out the window onto the flat New Jersey scrub and bog lands to which they had already been captive for no less than three hours.

Another twenty minutes of that view seemed a pittance.

By Charles' direction, they made their way through Margate City, down to the shore where they did indeed find Lucy the Elephant.

But it was a sorry thing, well-rusted, slightly bent in the tusk and worn in body.

Erik pulled the car to a halt some yards away, though they were alone in the parking lot, and they walked together to stand before the elephant -- at least the bulk and height and _heft_ of the thing were not to be trifled with.

Charles paid for two entry tickets. Even fifty cents a head seemed still too gross an expense for this, but Erik followed him inside. They shuffled slowly up: the stair wound up the leg, just as Charles had said, and the metal steps groaned with disuse under their weight.

"Erik? You don't think--"

"It will hold."

And when they reached the belly, Charles said, "A bit stifling, don't you think?" His brow was finely beaded with sweat, and he impatiently drew a handkerchief over his face, mussing his hair at the temples.

Erik himself was unbothered by the heat. While Charles fussed with his shirtsleeves, Erik looked about, taking in the wilted brochure stands, the empty glass case -- remnants of what had once been a gift shop. Eying the frayed carpet, he said, "Let's keep going."

A breeze was there to meet them when they reached the observation deck. Erik could feel Charles' relief: it crested on his mind like a low wave on the sand.

Erik was getting used to Charles' emotions leaking out unabated now, tangling in his own. It was pleasant. And Charles knew this, of course he did, even without being told.

Perhaps that's why he let it happen with ever-greater frequency.

They stood a while without speaking, arms pressed to the rail, shoulders pressed together, so lightly. And before them was only the sea. Grey, but growing warmer orange with the coming dusk; vast, calm, and at a distance almost indistinguishable from the sky.

"This structure is largely wood," Erik said, after a moment. "It's only tin on the outside."

"Ah," said Charles, absently. He was picking at a loose sliver of paint, working at it with his thumbnail until it flicked off and was gone over the side. "I'm sorry I dragged us here. It's only-- well. I thought we could both use a bit of amusement."

"You're a fair traveling companion," Erik said. "But let me be the one to choose our next stop."

Charles sniffed. "If it was up to you, we'd be driving through every night. We're matched in purpose, but not necessarily in stamina."

"Hmm." Erik let his lips curl into a smile. "Don't sell yourself short, Charles."

"Where to, then? You've seen the list of mutants."

Erik nodded.

He ran his fingers over the rail's curve. He could feel the corrosion in the metal that worked through to the center, and without even trying he could picture the collective might of eighty years' worth of storms, salt and wind. And then: "The thing about ideas, Charles, is that even the grandest of them seem like folly, in time."

"No, Erik." Charles met his eye. "Not all of them."

*

The day had been long. But then, they all were.

Training was what Erik knew best of all, what he'd spent years at -- it was training _others_ that took some getting used to.

At least the children were up to the challenge, or nearly. After their run-in with Shaw at the base and Darwin's death, they were more determined than ever to wring every last bit of potential from their abilities.

Today, Erik spent most of his time with Sean. No doubt Sean would want nothing more to do with Erik for the foreseeable future, Erik had worked him so hard. But there again was that _potential_.

And Erik admitted well enough that Charles was also a capable instructor.

Where Erik was stern and quick, Charles was slow-moving, compassionate, but so bloody strong and not at all unlike the river which in time wore through a mile of sheer stone. Moreover, Charles took the time to get to know the children, learning their quirks and forgiving their qualms with the same quiet acceptance he'd shown Erik those last months.

Erik didn't give a damn about the children's histories.

He only needed to know Charles.

Charles, all but knitted into Erik's side each day upon waking. His hand would stroke the taut lines of Erik's arm as though once again memorizing every wrought sinew and muscle, before he worked round to press a flat palm on Erik's stomach.

And inevitably, through a yawn, "Erik, I don't suppose you'd be a dear and put the kettle on."

Erik kissed Charles then, leaving him flushed and panting, his cock pressed hard on Erik's thigh. "Tea, Charles? Is that all you can think about?"

"No," Charles agreed. "Not only."

"Mm," said Erik, his mouth on Charles' throat.

"It's only--" Charles hitched in a breath: Erik began to run his teeth along Charles' collarbone, teasingly, but enough to redden that maddeningly pale skin. "It's only what I'm used to. The ritual of the thing."

Erik knew something or other about ritual. He understood the sort of comfort a good one could provoke.

It was usually down to repetition. (He moved his mouth down, laving at a nipple.)

Part muscle-memory. (Charles' hands were in Erik's hair, coaxing him lower.)

Part biology. (Again, Erik used his teeth. He wanted to hear Charles keen with need, and oh, there it was: //Erik.//)

Part history, passed on.

Erik took Charles in his mouth, one hand splayed on Charles' hip, and he worked his tongue round the tip, tasting and teasing at Charles' slit. Then as with a long intake of breath, Erik let Charles' cock slide fully into his mouth.

For a minute, he just savored that salty flavor. Unmistakably Charles.

//Erik, oh god, you've no idea. The things you do to me...//

In fact, Erik had a very good idea. He took his own cock in his fist and began to stroke himself off. He moved his hand in time with his mouth, slackening his jaw as much as he could, speeding up. And as always happened with the first fuck of the day, they both came before they even realized they mightn't slow down, make it last--

Erik couldn't think. He was lost, spilling over his fingers and swallowing through the last of Charles' tremors, lost in the cascade of Charles' thoughts.

//Erik, Erik, Erik.//

Charles pulled him up, kissed him through heaving breaths.

After that, after a while, yes. Erik put the kettle on.

And he put it on again before dinner, after they'd finished the day's training schedule, knowing it settled Charles' nerves. Erik didn't mind it either.

Usually Erik liked to get cleaned up first. He shed his sweatsuit and showered, briefly. Then he donned his usual slacks and turtleneck. He combed his hair. And for a moment, he stood alone in the hall outside his room.

There was a wide window there with a good view of the grounds. He could see here and there subtle changes in the trees, greens slowly going red, but the lawn itself was still lush and full.

Directly below, Hank was doing exercises along the lip of the fountain, flipping from hands to feet and back again with surprising dexterity and grace. For all his awkward intellectual harping, Hank showed extraordinary strength. Erik knew that he could be a true force to be reckoned with, if only he would allow himself.

Beyond that, Alex and Sean were wrestling in the grass, the old football they'd been tossing between them momentarily forgotten.

And then there was Charles. He was sweaty, his shirt damp and clinging to his chest. It seemed he'd been out running -- he had his hands on his hips, and he was breathing heavily. Happily.

Erik watched him cross the lawn. Nearer now. Charles pushed his hair back from his brow, then wiped his hand on his thigh in a furtive, boyish movement.

He spent a few minutes talking to Hank, and Hank seemed to like whatever was being said. He nodded, grinned, then bounded back up onto the fountain.

Charles nodded too. He gave Hank a thumbs-up, and Hank came very close to toppling into the water.

Erik huffed out a laugh, unable to stop himself. Charles was a fool. Erik knew this irrevocably, unrepentantly. But so too was Erik for following him.

Against all his experience, even through every tortured day of his life, there was something in Charles that Erik clung to tighter than he ought, as if he'd never left the sea the night he'd first faced the _Caspartina_ , as if there was always the chance he'd drown.

But Charles was there, that night. He was still there, still below Erik, but close.

And then this happened: Charles looked up.


End file.
